Past, present and future travels around the United States in our motorhomes.

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Monday, February 4, 2013

Scheduling Some RV Maintenance

Seems like since we've been here at our South Carolina "home" the last two months, we've been doing some maintenance on our tired, old bodies, with still more to come (hopefully quickly).

We can't let maintenance items on the Journey go undone, so I'm looking at scheduling some much need preventive maintenance while we're still here for a little while longer.

Item number one is an oil and filter change on our Cat diesel, as well as two new fuel filters and a chassis greasing. I was going to drive the one hundred miles up to the Gaffney, SC Freightliner shop and have it done, but a better idea came onto my radar.

We have an Onan 8 KW Quiet Diesel in the Journey. It has been a totally reliable unit and has given us great service. Now it is time for me to have it gone over for some major wearing parts to be replaced.

Top of the list is the fan belt for the radiator. Along with that the radiator hoses need replacing. The belt and hoses are supposed to be replaced at the 1000 hour mark and I have 1800 hours on the genny. I don't want to take any chances of a belt or hose failure during our summer travels when we will need the generator to run our air conditioner during hot boondocking stays.

Along with those items, I'll have the thermostat replaced and the plastic coolant reservoir tank carefully inspected, as well as the brushes on the generator stator, not to mention anything else that even remotely looks sketchy.

Why? In a nutshell, the generator is mounted in the front of the Journey and has to be dropped down and out from underneath the frame to get at the insides. Because it is a labor intensive job (read expensive) to remove and replace the generator, it's in my best interest to have all this work done at the same time, instead of having to have the generator removed and replaced again at a later time to replace something simple that could be changed out now. I wish I had a generator slide on the Journey like some motorhomes have, but it was not built with one. The next motorhome, however...

Doing some research on the Internet, I found a nearby (18 miles) Cummins Onan dealership.

I'm going to take a ride up there hopefully this week and talk to them about getting an appointment and an estimate for the generator service. The best part about this shop is it is also a Coach Care shop.

Coach Care service centers are set up to work on any RV out there. I can have them do the chassis service and engine oil changes at the same time, a "two-fer". They have free hookups for customers if the work needs to take two days. This is a win-win for me because now I can drive just 36 miles instead of 200 to get everything done. With the price of diesel fuel and the money I'll save, I can probably pay for the parts alone. Sometimes you win one.

We sure do enjoy our travels in the Journey and money spent on keeping it in tip top shape is an investment in our future fun and adventures.

Just because the Journey didn't come with a Gen-Slide doesn't mean it can't be changed over. The Coach Care shop should be able to do it for you. That will also add to resale value when the time comes to trade it up. Be Safe and Enjoy!

Looking forward to your review of the service you get. We were going to have everything done in Gaffney when we went there in March for Camp Freightliner, but we had to push that back to July, so we'll get our servicing done here in Red Bay instead.

Who are we?

Paul is a retired career U.S. Coast Guard Chief Warrant Officer (1981 to 2011) and Marti is a retired Nursing Home Administrator. We currently (2014) have three children, all married and eight grandkids.
We have traveled all around the U.S. in a high-speed, part time travel mode, whetting our desire to travel fulltime in our RV. On December 5, 2011, we realized our dream and headed out on the road as newly minted full time RV travelers.